Monday, June 27, 2011

Magnetic polarity at Avebury Henge

In the previous post, I reported on the work of Walter Cruttenden and the theory that the phenomenon of precession is caused not by a wobble in the earth's axis but rather by the elliptical motion of the earth around another faraway stellar object.

The point of that post was not to suggest that I necessarily subscribe to that particular theory but to point it out as noteworthy -- something that people who are interested in the mystery of mankind's ancient past should be aware of and keep an eye on.

Obviously, Mr. Cruttenden's work involves some common points of interest with the subject matter covered in the Mathisen Corollary, including the phenomenon of precession as well as the thesis that and ancient civilization (or civilizations) achieved levels of advancement far beyond anything currently described in conventional timelines of history.

One other extremely interesting point which Mr. Cruttenden mentioned briefly during his interview on Red Ice Radio (which can also be accessed via podcast by searching iTunes for the phrase "Red Ice Cruttenden") is the work of the late John Burke, author of Seed of Knowledge, Stone of Plenty.

Mr. Burke and his colleagues were involved in measuring the electromagnetic fields found at henges and megalithic sites around the world, and they reportedly found that certain structures appeared to be designed to channel the earth's naturally-occurring telluric energy in some way. The earth's magnetosphere results from its interaction with the ionized solar wind, as explained in this description with diagrams from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and the changes in this magnetic field create very low-frequency underground electric currents which travel over long distances on the earth.

In the interview, Mr. Cruttenden brings up a startling finding reported by John Burke and co-autor Kaj Halberg in their book. They report that measurements of the stones at Avebury Henge in England detected low levels of magnetic polarity in each stone, and the surprising fact that the circle stones appear to have been arranged such that the south pole of one stone faces the north pole of the next, to create a circle of magnetic polarity as well as a physical circle of stone.

On page 130 of their work, Burke and Halberg report:

These big slabs of sandstone, dragged from nearby Marlborough Downs, contain black magnetite, which makes the stones magnetic. Retaining their original polarity from their formation deep underground, each stone acts like a weak but very large magnet. While the magnetism of the standing stones is not strong enough to noticeably deflect a compass needle, the more sensitive magnetometers show that the stones are indeed magnetic, as geological studies have confirmed. We recorded a particularly powerful jump in the magnetometers by holding the probe up to a fist-sized cluster of magnetite crystals, visible in one of the avenue sarsens.

If these stones were strictly for cermonial purposes, the magnetic orientation of the stones would not be of consequence. However, the south pole of each stone faces the next stone in line as you move toward the circle. This arrangement means that the north poles of the stones generally point south, which are opposing the geomagnetic field. Inside the main and the minor stone circles, the south poles of all stones point at the next stone in the circle, in a clockwise direction, with two exceptions. The stones at the two intact causeway entrances have their poles aligned with those of the avenue, rather than with the clockwise pattern of the circle, up to a ninety-degree difference from their companions in the ring. We measured all sixty-seven remaining stones, with an average of sixteen readings per stone. None had a detectable magnetic pole pointing in a direction that would contradict this pattern. 130-131.

Mr. Burke and Mr. Halberg note that the henges (circular ditches with accompanying circular mounds) found throughout western Europe and the British Isles would tend to disrupt the telluric current, but that these ditches almost always feature an intact causeway or bridge (or place where the ditch stops on either side before completing the circle) where the current would tend to be focused more strongly (just as water, flowing through a chokepoint or narrow place, will flow with more velocity, a principle which is incorporated in shower heads or kitchen faucets that produce many tiny jets using very small openings). You can see the very prominent ditch and embankment at Avebury, along with part of the circle of stones, in the image above.

The authors theorize that these constructions might have created beneficial stress upon seeds, inducing them to grow better and produce more food yield. In a 2008 interview between Mr. Cruttenden and Mr. Burke available at the official CPAK online website here, Mr. Burke notes that ancient construction with measurable electromagnetic effects are not confined to the Old World but exist all over North America as well, and points to an early record from a Jesuit missionary who said the Native American tribes in the area of Louisiana would still bring seeds to a certain mystical location in order to receive a sort of blessing upon the seeds prior to planting them.

Whether this is the correct explanation or not for these ancient monuments, it is certainly an interesting area for further research. It may be that there were other original purposes for the constructions, and that they also had beneficial agricultural side effects which were noted by either the original architects or by later peoples.

Whatever one concludes, the bigger point seems to be that if in fact the huge multi-ton stones of Avebury are situated such that their poles align with the circles themselves, this would constitute powerful evidence that the designers possessed far greater levels of technological advancement than conventional historians attribute to them. Images of other magnetometer and caesium gradiometer surveys at other megalithic stone circles and henges done by other researchers appear to confirm the findings of Mr. Burke and Mr. Halberg -- some of them can be found here.

Magnetic anomalies have been recorded at many ancient sites in North America as well. The numerous chambers found in New England often share similar construction techniques and solar orientations to passage mounds found in Ireland and other parts of Europe, a fact I discuss towards the end of the Mathisen Corollary book. This website by Dr. Bruce Cornet notes the location of several dozen such stone constructions in New York state, as well as diagrams of the magnetic anomalies near many of these sites.

The fact that sites in the New World appear to contain evidence of deliberate electromagnetic manipulation or orientation provides yet another clue suggesting ancient contact across the oceans, contrary to what is taught in schools from kindergarten to the university. For other posts discussing other clues that contradict "isolationist" doctrines, see here and here.

This evidence would certainly appear to be a fertile field for future research. While much of it is quite startling and open to many possible interpretations, and while some of the evidence and interpretations offered so far may require more examination, simply rejecting it out of hand is probably not the wisest course of action if we really want to learn more about the real ancient timeline of mankind. Perhaps it is best to close this brief examination by referring back to the quotation by Edgar Smith Craighill Handy, cited approvingly by Thor Heyerdahl in 1953: "There is such a variety of possibilities open in the matter of relationships and derivations that my own feeling is that there is only one sure way of being in the wrong, and that is by asserting dogmatically what is not true" (cited in American Indians in the Pacific 8).